5D3, 24-105, jittery IS

digital

digital

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I'm finding that the IS on my 5D3 and 24-105 is bouncing all over the place at times and is quite noisy when it does so. There appears to be no pattern to the problem and some of the images are left blurred.

A solution would be welcome as I'm currently in China and will remain here for another two weeks.
 
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Do you mean image stabilization?

on all my lenses with IS I turn it off if shooting in daylight as its doing nothing but wear itself out and waste battery power. I rarely used it on my 24-105 when I had one a couple of years ago.

They use a motion sensor to function...yours could be busted :(

my advice...turn it off, forget it exists and learn to live without.
 
If I had wanted to do that I wouldn't have asked the question I did...
 
you asked for a solution...

there is no setting or reason for this happening so, bar you going and buying another lens while in China, turning it off is your only option.
 
http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00cUDS

see the post by 'Marcus Ian' who says

"I have had one IS system fail (not on a 24-105). But it was clear the unit as failing, as, intermittently, the image would stutter for long seconds.

By the way, 1/60 handheld, at the long end should give you fairly sharp results (still subject). If not, and holding the same way, you find the shots taken at 1/60 handheld with a 100mm lens to be sharper, you should be suspicious of the IS system in the 24-105"

if the underlined describes what you are seeing then I would imagine your lens needs to go into Canon for repair.
 
quango2k said:
seems like a pretty common problem...
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Well, when you think how many 24-105s there are in circulation - I'm not sure it's fair to say it's "common", based on a handful of reports, but I'll grant that may not be an isolated occurrence.
 
Thank you for the research: Google isn't an option in China.
 
quango2k said:
on all my lenses with IS I turn it off if shooting in daylight as its doing nothing but wear itself out and waste battery power
Click to expand...

That's an odd sweeping remark. Whether you need IS or not is a considerably more complex decision than 'is it the daytime?'. Type of shot, shutter speed, stance of the photographer, physical limitations of the photographer, focal length etcetera...

Sounds like a fault to me unfortunately
 
James Wheeler said:
That's an odd sweeping remark. Whether you need IS or not is a considerably more complex decision than 'is it the daytime?'. Type of shot, shutter speed, stance of the photographer, physical limitations of the photographer, focal length etcetera...

Sounds like a fault to me unfortunately
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Not that odd, I do turn it off unless the shutter speed is lower that 60. I never said he had to :) he asked for a solution while in China, as it sounds like a fault it's the only option really if he wants to carry on using it.
 
quango2k said:
you asked for a solution...

there is no setting or reason for this happening so, bar you going and buying another lens while in China, turning it off is your only option.
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I'm guessing a more appropriate solution would have been -

Take / send it to a Canon service centre, it needs looking at!
 
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He is in China for 2 weeks! so if he wants to carry on taking pics while there, sending it to a Canon service centre wont help him right now.
 
Depends where he is. There's a Canon repair centre at the Beijing International Convention Centre and another one in Dongcheng. They might be able to do a quick turnaround, or at least diagnose it?
 
If he can get to one then yes, they can take a look for sure. When IS is failing it requires the PCB to be changed out, its not too expensive to have done luckily.
 
Without wanting to sound ungrateful for the quick response I got, turning IS off was the first thing I did. I was hoping for something along the lines of 'I had that happen to me and I fixed it by cleaning the contacts' (which I have tried!) or 'Turn it off and remove the battery for xx minutes' (which I haven't tried).

It looks as though a warranty claim is on the cards.
 
Out of interest, how old is it?
 
Beijing was a week ago. We're in Hangzhou now and are working our way towards Shanghai over the next two weeks. Even with a local Canon centre, I doubt we would be able to take time out for a fix. It looks as though I'll just have to work round it.
 
At least you wont have to pay for it, still a PITA though. As quango2k said, just switch it off for now, hopefully you have another lens for shooting in low light (where I guess the IS is most useful, certainly is for me when I'm travelling).
 
digital said:
30 months, but I have a three year warranty with Panamoz.
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Bother and bother again. It was different lens that had the three year warranty. This one had one year.

Anyone able to recommend a dependable (and reasonable cost!) repairer in the UK? Do I assume they would also clean the lens's innards as it's starting to collect some dust?
 
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digital said:
Without wanting to sound ungrateful for the quick response I got, turning IS off was the first thing I did. I was hoping for something along the lines of 'I had that happen to me and I fixed it by cleaning the contacts' (which I have tried!) or 'Turn it off and remove the battery for xx minutes' (which I haven't tried).

It looks as though a warranty claim is on the cards.
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Apologies if I sounded like I was teaching you to suck eggs. Before I posted I checked with a few sites and everyone had tried cleaning contacts etc etc with no luck..so my suggestion was kind of your only option if you wanted to carry on using it until you can get it repaired.

I have heard of many people having problems with the IS especially within a certain batch of 24-105 Lenses..I have owned 4 of them and all 4 never had a problem, now the only lens I own with IS is the 70-200 F2.8 and its turned off for a majority of the time unless at 200mm.

I feel your pain, sending lenses back is a PITA especially when you use them a lot.
 
digital said:
Bother and bother again. It was different lens that had the three year warranty. This one had one year.

Anyone able to recommend a dependable (and reasonable cost!) repairer in the UK.
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H Lehmanns on 01782 413611. great service, they are a CPS centre too if you are a member.

PS: I just gave them a quick call for an estimate to repair IS on your lens. Subject to inspection it can cost from £220 upwards.

Might pay to shop around a bit more :(
 
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quango2k said:
H Lehmanns on 01782 413611. great service, they are a CPS centre too if you are a member.

PS: I just gave them a quick call for an estimate to repair IS on your lens. Subject to inspection it can cost from £220 upwards.

Might pay to shop around a bit more :(
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Thanks: appreciated!

Not a cheap repair if it starts at £220 and Panamoz have the lens new for £490 (£465 with bank transfer).
 
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no, not cheap at all. I would shop around though as I'm sure I read someone got theirs fixed for less than £50.
 
Safely back in the UK and the IS has been bouncing around all over the place.

A phone call to Canon in Elstree just now has come up with £100-150 for the IS board, £60 to calibrate the lens to my 5D3 body and £80 for a service on the 5D3.

Is the lens-body calibration worth it?

Is the £80 service worth it on a 30 month old body with a shutter count of 22500 and which has been used on all seven continents (so plenty of heat and plenty of cold)?
 
Do they say what is included in said service? The lens to body calibration you can do easily yourself.
 
Clean the body, lubricate moving parts, 'function checks', 'image analysis', 'diagnostic check', clean the sensor, 'minor repairs', attend to any user reported issues (I've had a couple of 'ERR 80s', update firmware if requested.
 
It does. Body and lens in the post to Elstree in the morning.
 
The camera and lens have arrived at Canon, Elstree and they've provided www.canon.co.uk/status as a way to check on progress. However, that URL comes up with:
'Firefox cannot guarantee the safety of your data on apps.canon.de because it uses SSLv3, a broken security protocol.
Advanced info: ssl_error_unsupported_version'
in Firefox, Chrome and IE.

Anyone know of a solution?
 
digital said:
The camera and lens have arrived at Canon, Elstree and they've provided www.canon.co.uk/status as a way to check on progress. However, that URL comes up with:
'Firefox cannot guarantee the safety of your data on apps.canon.de because it uses SSLv3, a broken security protocol.
Advanced info: ssl_error_unsupported_version'
in Firefox, Chrome and IE.

Anyone know of a solution?
Click to expand...

I've just opened that link in Safari on my iPhone and it opens fine that way. Can you open on a smartphone ?

Let us know how the repair goes.
 
Thanks. I've installed Safari and I can open the URL. I can only presume that Safari isn't as security sensitive as the other browsers.
 
A phone call to Elstree just now has left me a little concerned. I ended up describing the 24-105 IS jitter fault to them and they started to educate me on how there is often a little movement and a slight sound when the lens first focusses. It took a lot of persistence to get them to understand that I had been using it for the last 30 months and 22500 activations and that what was happening was something very much out of the ordinary. Even now, with references to replacing the 'iris unit', I'm not sure they've got it. The person dealing with the repair just seemed to be in a hurry to get me off the phone rather than listen and completely understand...
 
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